Munities of Estado De México*
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ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL MALE MIGRATION: STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AND GENDER IN CAMPESINO COM- MUNITIES OF ESTADO DE MÉXICO* JORGE ARZATE SALGADO1 IVONNE VIZCARRA BORDI2 ABSTRACT: This article confronts the notion that male migration and remittances sent home enable women’s autonomy and improve their living conditions. From the perspec- tive of structural crises, the implications of migration on women’s lives are generally negative, as inequality is further increased and violence towards women is not eliminated. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 women from the Estado de México between 2005 and 2006 and framed within the context of rural life, this article discusses how struc- tural crises reproduce patterns of violence, discrimination, and exclusion towards women. It also proposes some hypothesis concerning the role of structural violence as an instigator of gender-based violence. The article ends with a reflection on the role neoliberal welfare policies have on the degradation of women’s human condition. KEYWORDS: Structural violence, Male migration, Rural crisis, Gender, Estado de México. * This article is a product of the Conacyt research project (register code Inmujer 2002-COI-10356): La seguridad alimentaria y la equidad de género en condiciones de migración masculina en el medio mex- iquense. El papel de las instituciones, which also included the collaboration of Bruno Lutz, Mariela Loza and Xóchitl Guadarrama. 1 Ph.D. in Sociology from the Universidad de Salamanca; researcher at the School of Political Sci- ence and Public Administration of the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (e-mail address: [email protected]). 2 Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the Laval University of Québec; researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Agropecuarias of the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (e-mail address: ivbordi@hotmail com; [email protected]). 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 83 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO JORGE ARZATE SALGADO & IVONNE VIZCARRA BORDI ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL MALE MIGRATIO INTRODUCTION his article is an empirical confrontation between the notion that male migration and remittances sent home enable women’s autonomy and improve their living conditions (Rosas, 2005).3 Our arguments will be supported on a structural analysis of the implications this migration Thas had on the lives of women. We are particularly interested in showing how male migration has led to the reproduction of inequality and violence towards the female gender, placing women, regardless of fact that they may consider themselves or not heads of a household, in a situation of crisis, while acting as pillars of social and biological reproduction to preserve the economical and cul- tural life of the rural way of life. This discussion is the result of field work carried out in 2005 and the begin- ning of 2006, with exploratory nuances, in six rural communities of Estado de México.4 Three of these communities, situated to the south (Las Vueltas in Coate- pec Harinas municipality; La Unión, in Almoloya de Alquisiras municipality, and Potzontepenc in Sultepec municipality) have solid migratory networks and flows towards the United States of America, having engaged in international migration for over three decades. The other three communities, located to the northeast (San Francisco Tepeolulco in Temascalcingo municipality; San Lucas Ocoltepec in San Felipe del Progreso y Santa Rosa de Lima municipality, and El Oro mu- nicipality), with a high index of Mazahua Indians, have only integrated male transnational migration to their way of living very recently. The purpose of this article is to propose a series of hypothesis concerning the social and gender effect transnational male migration currently has on rural mu- nicipalities in these territories. We start with a brief historical sketch that includes the socioeconomic con- texts which have cornered campesino societies into not being any longer an im- portant productive segment in Mexican economy and becoming the clientele of policies to combat poverty and illegal immigrant in the United States. We also describe how the rural way of life is structured and proceed to analyze how these structures reproduce violent discrimination and exclusion models against women who stay home. In the third section we develop a number of hypotheses regard- ing the role of structural violence as the root of gender-based violence. We con- clude considering the role neoliberal welfare policies have had and still have on the degradation of the human condition. 3 See also some of the articles compiled in Barrera and Oehmichen (2006). 4 Estado de México is one of the thirty two states comprising the Mexican Federation. It is one of the most populated states in Mexico (14 million inhabitants according to the population count made by the Instituto Nacional de Geografía e Informática in 2005). It also has geographically and so- cially-contrasting spaces, such as megacities and industrialized areas, like the semi-urban area of Mexico City of the capital city of Toluca as opposed to the great number of rural municipalities, which base their livelihood on subsistence agriculture. 84 SECOND SEMESTER 2007 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 85 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO JORGE ARZATE SALGADO & IVONNE VIZCARRA BORDI ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL MALE MIGRATIO More than a description and based on in-depth interviews to 30 women, we include a theoretical and normative analysis to propose future research lines. The considerations lead to a series of broader ideas that go beyond a case study to become general working hypotheses. DECLINE OF THE RURAL WORLD: POVERTY AND MIGRATION Migration from rural communities in Estado de México is not new; it started over six decades ago, during World War II, with a program requesting Mexican agri- cultural workers for the United States. Ever since then, migration is still constant in several rural communities,5 although this migratory process has increased exponentially in the last twenty years. From being a state with relatively few immigrants to the United States, in the 90’s Estado de México became one of the main exporters of labor to that country.6 Municipalities to the south of the valley of Toluca in Estado de México currently have the highest numbers of migration intensity, as do those from the north and northeast of the state.7 This means that a considerable percentage of homes receive remittances sent by relatives working in the United States and Canada.8 This process has developed alongside four very important contextual phe- nomena at a national level: increasing inequality regarding wealth distribution; fewer opportunities to have access to the social service coverage offered by the State (health, schooling, basic infrastructure for homes and communities, food supply programs); depletion of fertile lands as a result of inadequate programs to modernize the countryside, and lack of well-paid rural jobs, explained by the exclu- sion of the campesino segment from the national economic model. This may be in turn characterized by lack of policies to promote and support the rural segment.9 5 There was an important migration of Indian municipalities to neighboring cities during the 70s and 80s, which is the case of the Mazahua groups found to the north of Toluca valley (Patiño, 2002). 6 Historical migration, that is, individuals born in Mexico who have become United States resi- dents, amounted to 233,962 until 2002. However, recent migration to the Unites States, that is, migration from 1995 to 2002, consisted of 127,425 people. The number of migrants in Estado de México for the year 2000 is only superseded by the states of Jalisco (historical migration of 1, 743,837 and recent migration of 170,793), Michoacán and Guanajuato, in this order (Garavito and Torres, 2004). 7 The important number of speakers of the Otomí and Mazahua Indian languages is a characteris- tic of this area. 8 Some of the municipalities that stand out because of their high migratory indexes include Coate- pec Harinas, Ixtapan de la Sal, Malinalco, Tejupilco, Tlatlaya, and Tonatico, among others. Sta- tistical information may be found in: <http://www.conapo.gob.mx>. 9 In Mexico we may speak of campesino or rural agriculture, the social and economical sector that emerged with land distribution, an achievement of the Revolutionary War (1910-1921). Campesi- no agriculture produces basic grains (corn, particularly) based on techniques and an ancestral knowledge related to the preservation of agricultural and ecological resources, with intense use of family labor. This social and productive sector has small one-to-two hectare land plots as its 84 SECOND SEMESTER 2007 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 85 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO JORGE ARZATE SALGADO & IVONNE VIZCARRA BORDI ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL MALE MIGRATIO As to the wider gap between classes and region, the 90s were particularly instructive, something which was not only experienced in Mexico but practi- cally in all Latin American countries.10 With neoliberalism as the economic model, access to social services offered by the State was restricted in almost every country of the continent. Amendments to the social security system in Mexico, for instance, decreased the rights of citizens, transferred some of the responsi- bilities of the welfare state to the market and undermined the solidarity principle of the welfare state (Dion, 2006). Exclusion of the rural segment from the economic model based on the expor- tation of manufactured goods has signified the slow social destruction